Second Chance with the Millionaire

‘Wouldn’t it have been easier for you to take them to the Dower House with you?’

‘Yes it would, but they are family papers, and I felt they belonged to the Manor.’

‘Rather a different view to your father’s. I gather from my conversation with the solicitors that he managed to dispose of almost everything that might raise any cash.’

It was a just criticism and one she could not defend. She had privately considered it deplorable that her father should have stripped the house of its assets—assets that, had Saul inherited them, he would have been able to sell to keep the house going.

‘I’m not my father, Saul.’

It was all she could say, and she knew from the warm touch of his hand against her own that he understood how she felt.

Although it wasn’t very late when they got back, she felt tired enough to make her own way to bed less than an hour after she had tucked both children into theirs.

She and Saul had parted without so much as a kiss but she did not feel cheated or disappointed. The look in his eyes before he left her had told her there would be a time for them, and it had soothed her earlier fears about his imminent return to the States. Had he been questioning her about the children earlier because he did intend to ask her to go with him?

One step at a time, she told herself sleepily. One step at a time.

* * *

Her appointment with her publishers was fixed for Tuesday lunch time and on Monday Lucy went down to see the vicar’s wife, to ask if she could possibly look after Oliver and Tara for the day. She had known Nancy Smallwood nearly all her life; Nancy’s daughter Veronica was five years her senior and married now with two children.

‘I’d love to have them,’ Nancy assured her warmly. ‘Veronica’s bringing Daniel and Amanda down this afternoon—I’m looking after them for a week so that she and Ryan can have a break—so they’ll be company for one another.’

‘How’s Saul settling in?’ she asked, having met Saul the summer he had stayed at the Manor.

‘Pretty well. Oliver was inclined to resent him a little at first, but now he tends to rather hero-worship him.’

‘Oh well, that’s no bad thing. A boy that age needs a man to model himself on. Does Saul intend to stay do you know?’

‘I don’t. I can’t see how he would be able to keep the Manor on—that would take a fortune.’

‘Yes. So what will he do—sell I suppose?’

‘I expect so. He hasn’t discussed it, but I don’t see that he has much option. It won’t be easy to find a buyer.’

‘It would make a first-rate hotel—or a school… or even a convalescent home.’

She was right, and Lucy frowned slightly. The last time she had seen Neville he had been talking about a consortium he knew who might be interested in buying the Manor, but knowing Neville and his sharp practices Lucy doubted that any sale to Neville’s friends would be very beneficial to Saul. She frowned harder, remembering how derogatory Neville had been about Saul the last time they met.

There had been an unpleasant degree of antipathy and contempt in his sneering comments about Saul’s financial position and intelligence. She smiled rather grimly to herself. It might do Neville good to realise that Saul was not the hick country boy he seemed to think.

It didn’t take her long to walk back from the vicarage. She had left the children in the care of Mrs Isaacs, and so she made her way up to the Manor without stopping at the Dower House.

When she got there there was no sign of Saul and Mrs Isaacs told her that he had had to go out on business.

‘Had a phone call from America he did this morning,’ she confided expectantly to Lucy, but Lucy refused to be drawn, collecting the children and thanking her for looking after them.

Some last-minute doubts about her book kept Lucy at her typewriter until late afternoon. Her study was at the back of the Dower House so she wasn’t aware that Saul had returned until Oliver burst in announcing, ‘Saul’s back. He’s in the kitchen talking to Tara and he wants to see you.’

Pushing back her machine she got up, automatically flexing stiff muscles as she followed Oliver into the kitchen.

Saul was perched on the edge of the kitchen table, his back towards her as he bent his head in apparent engrossment towards Tara who was busily confiding to him her hopes that fat little Harriet might come away from the local gymkhana with a much prized rosette. As she walked in she was just in time to hear Saul agreeing gravely with Tara’s views.

His head was turned towards the little girl, the strong tanned column of his neck exposed, the dark hair curling into his nape. Lucy had to subdue an aching impulse to reach out and touch him, to place her lips to that warm brown skin and breathe in the vital male scent of him.